


Lemon Cider

by MCalhen



Category: Nabari no Ou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2351672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCalhen/pseuds/MCalhen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being given something is nice, sometimes. Yukimi gives him meals and clothes and words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lemon Cider

Yukimi presses the lemon cider into Yoite’s hands. Its warmth spreads through his palms and fingertips, even through the gloves. He can still feel it. One sense hasn’t left him, but he knows in time, they all will.

Being given something is nice, sometimes. Yukimi gives him meals and clothes and words.

There was a boy who used to offer him gifts, when he was a child. Used textbooks were slipped through the bars in the window. “They don’t need it anymore, school’s done with,” Tsukasa said. “I know you like books, so here are more.”

Sometimes Tsukasa told him about the baseball games at the school.

“I want to see one.” Yoite might not have voiced this out loud. He can’t remember. He tries not to remember anything about his past, but there are parts of his life that press to the forefront of his mind against his will. All he can do is hope to forget.

Even if he cannot smell or taste much anymore, he connects scents to memories, and they are strong. The leather of a baseball mitt. Candles and incense from the church. Rubber soles on the hot pavement. Old books he liked read when he was alone. 

He has always been a fast reader and a quick learner. When Hattori handed him the scroll to learn Kira, he unlocked the mysteries and understood how to use it. It was not unlike the equations he worked out in mathematics.

He could drown out the sounds of the children shouting and laughing in the neighborhood, stare at the pages, and familiarize the formulas. Kira was easier. There were no noises.  
Even now, there are only a few sounds in the apartment. Yukimi’s rhythmic clacking on the keyboard sets a steady beat. Yoite likes to fall asleep to it.

“Yoite, you all right?” 

Yoite answers by taking a sip of his lemon cider. He can almost taste the tartness of lemon mellowed by the sweetness of honey. Yukimi reminds him of lemons and honey, of clicking and flashes of a camera, of affectionate words spoken in a half-hearted attempt at disregard, of warm liquids that ease the thirst in his throat, and of cat hairs Yoite sometimes finds on some of the blankets in the apartment.


End file.
